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But must it not draw on some source external to its essence,
if it is to be conditioned, not only by Being, but by being an
entity of a particular character? But if it is conditioned by a
particular character, and this character is external to its
essence, its essence does not comprise all that makes it Soul;
its individuality will determine it; a part of Soul will be
essence, but not Soul entire.
Furthermore, what being will it have when we separate it from its
other components? The being of a stone? No: the being must be a
form of Being appropriate to a source, so to speak, and a
first-principle, or rather must take the forms appropriate to all
that is comprised in Soul's being: the being here must, that is,
be life, and the life and the being must be one.
One, in the sense of being one Reason-Principle? No; it is the
substrate of Soul that is one, though one in such a way as to be
also two or more- as many as are the Primaries which constitute
Soul. Either, then, it is life as well as Substance, or else it
possesses life.
But if life is a thing possessed, the essence of the possessor is
not inextricably bound up with life. If, on the contrary, this is
not possession, the two, life and Substance, must be a unity.
Soul, then, is one and many- as many as are manifested in that
oneness- one in its nature, many in those other things. A single
Existent, it makes itself many by what we may call its motion: it
is one entire, but by its striving, so to speak, to contemplate
itself, it is a plurality; for we may imagine that it cannot bear
to be a single Existent, when it has the power to be all that it
in fact is. The cause of its appearing as many is this
contemplation, and its purpose is the Act of the Intellect; if it
were manifested as a bare unity, it could have no intellection,
since in that simplicity it would already be identical with the
object of its thought.
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